Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Well after a couple of BAD weeks of being sick and contending with poor weather, I am back to it! (To the orchard, of course.) Even with the weather we have been pruning and pressing on towards spring!

This week I spent some time in the processing room on campus. Another student and I processed graft wood that is now being stored for use very soon on our orchard. All of the trees we have been pruning the past weeks are grafted trees, so the graft wood supply is important.

Grafting involves taking two different varieties or species and combining them physically to become one. A grafted tree has two halves. The rootstock  is the bottom half. From this will grow the roots of the tree. It will provide support, nourishment, and sometimes disease resistance for the tree as a whole. The upper half of the tree is the graft or scion. Growers can take two trees suited for different areas of success and combine them into one tree that possesses all desirable traits. Different varieties perform better or worse in different environments compared to other varieties. One variety may be a strong producer of good pecans but have trouble with cotton root rot. However another variety may be mostly resistant. To produce a tree suitable for good production in an environment where cotton root rot is prevalent, growers graft the two trees together.

Hopefully soon, we'll get to grafting!

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